David & Sarah's Story

I’ll let you into a secret: I didn’t fancy him (although if you were to ask him, David would say I definitely did). We were both attending a counselling course together and yes, we had fun and hung around in the same group but he was much younger than me and I just hadn’t thought of him like that.

David was refreshingly direct. He rang one Sunday night after I’d returned from the course and said, “I like you and would love to get to know you better.” Flattered and, I admit, somewhat stunned by his overt approach, I agreed to supper the following week.

The venue was his flat in South London, the food simple but tasty and the conversation flowed. A quick glance at his bookshelf confirmed we had many of the same interests. I hadn’t dated many men before who could a) cook and b) were fascinated about the whole area of relationships and what makes them work. 

Eleven o’clock came and went. But with work the next day I felt I had to refuse a second helping of the delicious pastries. David walked me down to my car and gave me a gentle kiss goodbye on my cheek. 

The kiss was enough to trigger something inside of me. My indifference turned in that moment to definite “like”. Flustered and slightly confused I got into my car and tried to reverse out of the driveway outside his block of flats. My three-point turn morphed into a sixteen-point turn with David standing there watching. Later he told me that he hadn’t wanted to go indoors and leave me as he thought that would be rude and he didn’t want to intervene as he thought that I would think he thought I was incompetent (which clearly in that moment I was!). Nevertheless eventually I got my car out and drove off into the night.

Two of my friends, Ali and Amanda had been so excited that I’d gone on a date (the first in a year) that they’d made me promise to call afterwards and let them know how it went. I thought midnight was too late to phone so I wrote a report of the evening in a text instead. 

Only I didn’t send it to Ali... And I didn’t send it to Amanda... Oh yes… you've guessed it... I sent it to David! 

What did I say? 

‘Pleasantly surprised evening. Will explore further. Lots of love S x’ 

He thought I was being clever and witty using counselling-speak to indicate my interest to him. But it was only when I got his, which said ‘Glad to hear it!' that I realised what I had done. The good thing was now it was all out there. He knew I liked him and he liked me back. We had somehow managed to circumvent the usual weeks of trying to second-guess the other person’s feelings. It certainly helped speed things along. Two months later we were engaged and four months after that we were married.